HTM students learn and build community

HTM food service operations students raised $5,000 by working Mackey Arena concessions during the 2019-20 season. That money, matched dollar-for-dollar by the Walther Cancer Foundation, was donated to the Trent Cancer Research Endowment through the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research. The effort culminated with a ceremonial $10,000 check presentation at Ross-Ad Stadium’s Tyler Trent Student Gate.

Working in concession stands at Mackey Arena and Ross-Ade Stadium, students in Keith Molter’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) classes got valuable hands-on experience in running food service operations. Though not on the syllabus, the experience also gave them an important lesson in what it means for a business to be a part of its community.

Students in customer relations management and organization and management in the hospitality and tourism industry spend time in the classroom delving into management, food preparation and customer service. Working the Levy concession stands during football and basketball games offers an opportunity to put their lessons to the test.

“I believe that experiential learning is important. When you’re really doing it as part of the concessions, we’re under live fire, and people are paying real dollars for real products,” says Molter, an instructor in HTM and former Purdue food service director and graduate instructor. “Students grow from that experience.”

Spring semester HTM students satisfied the community engagement portion of Professor Molter’s food service operations classes by working Mackey Arena concessions at Purdue basketball games. Students contributed the money raised for their efforts to the YWCA and the Tyler Trent Cancer Research Endowment for the Purdue Center for Cancer Research.

Those who work Levy concession stands get a cut of the sales to benefit their campus or community organizations. Molter’s 2019-20 classes decided they should donate earnings to a charitable organization. After kicking around several ideas, students realized the stand they operated at Ross-Ade was just inside the Tyler Trent Student Gate. Trent, a Purdue superfan, was just 20 when he died in 2019 from a rare form of bone cancer.

The class raised $5,000, but Molter leveraged matching funds from the Walther Cancer Foundation to make a $10,000 donation to the Tyler Trent Cancer Research Endowment. The money funds cancer research at the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research.

“It was great to know that one small HTM class was able to help that much,” says Chris Gatton, a family and consumer science education major from Lake Village, Indiana. “Giving back is a great thing. It shows that a business isn’t just there to make money. They’re there to expand and grow the community around them. They can better the lives of everyone around them.

“Being in that class made me realize that we have an opportunity to do something bigger than ourselves.”

The spring semester students worked a Purdue-Iowa basketball game at Mackey and raised $2,000 for YWCA Greater Lafayette’s Domestic Violence Emergency Shelter. That donation was important to Emma Pechin, a teaching assistant in Molter’s classes who has volunteered at the YWCA.

“I saw directly how those donations can help people. It was a good amount of money, and it’s exciting to see that going to a cause I care a lot about,” says Pechin, a selling and sales management major from West Lafayette.

Molter says, “For the students, this is the first time they raised this kind of money and donated it to a community cause. In the long run, it helps them realize that doing nice things for people can add joy to what they’ll do for a living.”